2021 CSResolutions

Dear LinkedIn Friends,

Firstly, I want to wish you all the very best 2021. My personal hope is that the multiple vaccines enable us to get back to social normality, where epic high fives will again become the norm. 

Before we dive head first into 2021, I wanted to take a few moments to reflect on the last 12 months. It’s easy to view 2020 through a somewhat negative lens and to talk about the various COVID-19 related challenges we’ve faced. Yet I’d like to shine a spotlight on something else; MediaMonks CSR efforts.

MMajor CSR highlights in 2020

I’m immensely proud of the work our Monks have done around the globe on CSR. It’s a topic that is extremely important to me and over the last twelve months MediaMonks has made some hugely important steps in our ultimate ambition (more about that later...). 

In particular I want to call out the following highlights;

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Our D,E & I has really picked up pace this year. It’s been a focus of ours to dive deep into our diversity stats, as this is precisely what gives us direction. I’m delighted that the diversity work we started several years ago is now starting to come to fruition, as seen by the latest stats across S4;

• 29% of UK employees are people of colour
• 38% of US employees are people of colour
• 31% of senior positions in our US operations are held by people of colour 
• Across our US and UK operations 52% of employees are female and 48% are male
• The percentage of women in our content practise increased from 31% in January to 46% in December

We’re far from done however. Last year the incredibly talented WoMMen in Tech team continued to develop the platform for ambitious women in the predominantly male advertising industry. A special shout out to Natalie Visser, who has been a massive part of our culture, business growth and setting up our first office in the US in New York. If you can spare 4 minutes, I’d recommend listening to Natalie’s MediaMonks story below.

In November we also officially announced our partnership with TechGrounds. Together with SalesForce we’re delivering workshops and events with 20 future tech talents, 50% of which are female.

The environment

Across all of our 44 offices the environment and our environmental impact is a big focus. In 2020 we signed the EU green deal, which sets out an action plan to boost the efficient use of resources by moving to a clean, circular economy whilst also restoring biodiversity and cutting pollution. 

For World Clean Up Day, we also put out the call to sign up to a simple but important initiative called: #justpickitup. We challenged Monks across the world to pick up a piece of plastic (or litter), take a picture of it and post it on your social platform with the hashtag #justpickitup.

Sustainability

Digital production has long been at the core of what MediaMonks does and for the last few years we’ve worked hard on making sure production moves towards more sustainable practices. Across the last twelve months we accelerated our efforts and doubled down on our integrated production approach with clients. Doing so has enabled our production to become more sustainable and we’ve also been able to bring efficiencies in CO2 footprint. Not to mention the fact that it’s faster, better, and creates more value....

We partnered with our friends over at Google to create Sustainability Stories, which aims to inspire companies to be more sustainable. The interactive showcase features short videos and case studies, and also lets visitors explore which UN goals they could solve by pairing the goals to Google Cloud solutions. 

Additionally we continued to invest in SpaceBuzz, working with Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers to revolutionize education to teach new generations about the planet and the environment. And moving forward we have big ambitions to work with more groundbreaking ideas and projects that tackle important world issues.

2021 CSResolutions

As we move forward into 2021, we’ll be focusing on our ultimate ambition of….. becoming B-Corp certified by the end of the year.

It’s a long held ambition of ours and to realise it we will be focusing on three key pillars:

1. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Taking care of ourselves and each other. Recognising individuality, fostering a respectful culture and emphasising the value of ideas. Our aim is that the makeup of each office will be a balanced reflection of the society and cities they are based in.

Look out for S4’s Fellowship Program — which empowers young, exceptional students from underrepresented communities — as it officially begins in Q1 in 2021.

2. Zero Impact Workspaces

Taking care of our home and household, whilst creating a climate neutral and environmentally conscious workplace. 

MediaMonks is committed to achieving zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2024, in response to the World Economic Forum 2020 Davos Manifesto. As part of this we’re going to plant an S4 forest to offset our carbon footprint. The goal is two trees for every employee, per month, starting with planting at least 6000 trees in 2021, based on the average European CO2 emission per employee.

3. Sustainable Production

Taking care of our work and clients. Leverage our expertise to innovate with technology and creativity for good. 

Our goal is to become a truly sustainable production partner to brands and to be a frontrunner in an industry that needs to do more with sustainability. And as a first step, we’ll be launching a green production manifesto this year. 

I’d like to say a massive thank you to all the Monks involved, with a special shout out to Regina Romeijn, Imma Trillo, Kamron Hack, Kate Richling, Maxine Penney, Richard Nieuwenhuis and Simone van Bijsterveldt for all their hard work with CSR and B-Corp certification. I’m looking forward to achieving great things in 2021.

Watch this space!

Victor